Are Arctic Monkeys ‘The Last Great Guitar Band’?

Arctic Monkeys are in the news today after the vocalists of The Hives and Blur, respectively, have named them “the last great guitar band”.

Statements like that will always cause a kind of uproar amongst people who listen to rock and metal bands alike. The truth is that there is no one “last great guitar band” – to some, that title could belong to Metallica, to others, Foo Fighters; but to The Hives’ Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist and Blur’s Damon Albarn, it belongs to Arctic Monkeys.

Speaking in separate interviews but touching on the same topic, both singers made the same call. In a recent NME interview, Almqvist recalled touring with the British rockers and commented, “I think Arctic Monkeys are fucking amazing. They’re the only good, really popular band – and that’s not easy to do.”

Albarn joined the Broken Records Podcast, and when the topic of the “last great guitar band” came up, he answered, per American Songwriter: 

“I feel like there’s a bit more excitement about guitar music again that can’t be a bad thing because it got so sterile. For me, the last great guitar band would have been Arctic Monkeys, and I don’t really know if there’s anything as good as that since.”

Arctic Monkeys released their seventh album, The Car, in October 2022. The album followed in the footsteps of 2018’s Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino – a laidback, lounge-music-inspired record that divided fans. There are no huge riffs on the band’s two recent albums, so Albarn and Almqvist’s calls are interesting and will likely be as divisive as Arctic Monkeys’ current output.

Drummer Matt Helders said about The Car, "It’s never gonna be like R U Mine? and all that stuff again, you know, the heavy riffs and stuff. But there are riffs in there, and [it’s] a bit more up-tempo, even though it’s not loud," in an interview with The Big Issue.

You can check out The Music’s guitar-heavy ranking of the Top 10 Arctic Monkeys Bops You Need here, which we published before the band’s headlining slots at Falls and Lost Paradise festivals last year.